Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1954 that ruled racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. This pivotal decision overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, which had allowed for racial segregation in various public facilities, including schools.

The case was named after Oliver Brown, a Black father in Topeka, Kansas, who sued the local school board on behalf of his daughter Linda Brown, who was denied admission to a white elementary school due to her race. The case was consolidated with other cases from different states and argued before the Supreme Court by the NAACP legal team, including Thurgood Marshall who later became the first Black Supreme Court Justice.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public education was inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The ruling marked a significant victory for the Civil Rights Movement and set the stage for further legal challenges to segregation in other areas of society.

While the decision did not immediately lead to the desegregation of all schools, it was a critical step in the fight for racial equality and paved the way for future civil rights victories in the United States. Brown v. Board of Education is considered one of the most important cases in American legal history and a key moment in the struggle for racial justice.